


Before The Fateful Encounter

by sillyboyblue



Category: The Hitcher (1986)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:41:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8099035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sillyboyblue/pseuds/sillyboyblue
Summary: A rewrite of the opening scene of The Hitcher.





	

Jim had been driving for hours. Chicago, Illinois, was far behind him now. While his friends were on holiday, he was doing a drive-away. It was not exactly his idea of a dream job, but it gave him the opportunity to travel while being paid. He had been saving money to buy his own car for almost a year and he almost had enough. He was growing tired of borrowing his mother's car, especially since one of his friends got his own. It was a piece of shit, but Jim did not even have his own piece of shit.

He lit a cigarette with a match, hoping it would distract him from the never-ending road. He smoked occasionally, either to chase away stress or boredom. Today he was not stressed out. He knew where to go and how he would get there, and he looked forward to. San Diego, California. The place to be, in his opinion. He had been on a waiting list for months to get California. It was worth the wait. Lost in his musings, he forgot to bring the cigarette to his lips.

A car that passed him by brought him back to reality. It was a pretty decent-looking car, although quite old. It was blue. He could not know at the time, but even after the memory of the car's exact model would fade, he would never forget the fact that it was blue.

The car disappeared in the distance and he took a drag from his cigarette.

He knew he would have found the landscape beautiful had it not been so dark. He could not tell whether it was late night or early morning anymore. He had been driving for so long. "Take a nap every two hours", his mother had told him. It had been more than ten hours and he had only stopped twice to piss. He never listened to his mother yet he knew he should.

He turned the radio on to keep himself from falling asleep. He could not focus on what the anchorman was babbling about. His thoughts were unclear, just like a fogged up window. 

Thunder rolled and lit up the desert for an instant, but long enough for Jim to make out his surroundings. An instant had been enough for him to see that there was nothing to see. There was no gas station or motel in sight.

His throat was as dry as the desert. He took a few gulps of water from his thermos and as if the elements decided to mimic his action, it started to rain.

Whether it was because of the soothing pitter-patter of the rain on the windshield or the monochord voice of the anchorman lulling him to sleep, but his eyelids grew heavy and he was soon out like a light.

He was startled awake by the honk of a truck. He held onto the stirring wheel like a lifeline and spun it just in time to avoid being crushed under the massive wheels of the vehicle in front of him. He had moved to the wrong lane in his sleep.

This encounter left him in a state of shock. "I don't want to die", he thought. He extinguished his cigarette in the ashtray.

After thunder rolled again and lightning blinded him for an instant, Jim distinguished a lonely silhouette standing under the pouring rain on the side of the road with its arm held out and its thumb up. 

"Never pick up hitchhikers", Jim's mother had told him. He never listened to her. Perhaps he should have.


End file.
